We’ve followed the casting notes, perused the set photos, and soaked in the rumors. Today, we finally got to see some footage. We can’t show it to you yet, but we can go into details about what it contained.

During today’s Comic-Con panel at Hall H, Sony showed off a reel — essentially a trailer — from Marc Webb‘s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The video was a rough one, with incomplete effects and a couple of storyboards, but it was enough to offer us a good sense of the movie. And what we saw was pretty fantastic. Hit the jump for the full description.

The video opens with a shot of New York City streets. A large truck barrels through several cars, prompting the cops to get on the case. We then get our first glimpse at Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield), riding on top of one of the cop cars.

The Spidey of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a more confident, content Spidey than we saw in the previous film. We hear him in a voiceover: “You know what it is I love about being Spider-Man? Everything.” He chases a tattooed gangster (Paul Giamatti) who’s driving a truck, and manages to beat him up without much trouble.

But that doesn’t mean everything’s smooth sailing. We see a scene of Peter arguing with Aunt May (Sally Field) over, of all things, laundry. Or that’s the superficial subject; at heart is Peter’s need to protect his identity. “Last time you did it, you turned everything blue and red,” she scolds. Peter covers up by explaining that he’d been washing his flag, to which she protests, “No one washes their flag.”

Spider-Man’s first encounter with Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) comes shortly afterward. Spidey saves the rather pathetic-looking Oscorp employee from a disaster (seemingly during the chase with Giamatti’s Rhino), brushes him off, fixes his combover, and asks him to be his “eyes and ears.”

The incident leaves Max starstruck, and he’s seen shortly thereafter gushing to Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) in an elevator about how great it must be to be Spider-Man. “It must be pretty cool to have the whole world see you like that,” he gushes. “I wish I was like him. The amazing Spider-Man.”

Rhino also makes a further brief appearance. Spider-Man uses his web to trap him between two buildings, and further humiliates him by pulling down his pants. Rhino’s anger is stopped in its tracks when a pipe falls from the sky, knocking him unconscious. While some of the comedy in the trailer works (Spidey fixing Dillon’s combover, for instance) this bit was a little more rough.

While The Amazing Spider-Man showed Peter and Gwen getting together, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 follows them trying to stay together. Which may be easier said than done when one-half of the couple is a famous superhero. “You’re Spider-Man and I love that,” she says. “But I love Peter Parker more.”

Unfortunately, there’s still more trouble coming Peter’s way. We see Max at work, getting electrocuted and falling into a tank of electric eels. He emerges transformed into blue, glowing Electro, which of course can only spell trouble for Spider-Man.

Complicating Peter’s life further still is the reappearance of Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), whom we see only briefly in the trailer. He’s apparently spent the last several years at a private school called the Ravencroft Institute, and seems to have some lingering daddy issues as evidenced by a short appearance from a sick Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper). “Not everybody has a happy ending,” Norman says. In addition there are a couple shots that suggest how Gwen Stacy’s part in this story will end.

Cut to Electro’s rage-filled rampage across New York. “I just wanted everybody to see me,” he says. “Soon everyone will know how it feels to live in my world…. A world without Spider-Man.” He shoots lightning bolts across the city, toppling buildings and sending people screaming. In the last scene of the trailer, Spider-Man catches a cop car hurtling through the air, a split second before it would have landed on a policeman. “Need a hand?” he asks.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens May 2, 2014. For more on what we learned at the panel, keep an eye out for Germain’s upcoming Spider-Man post.